The Burning of Cork, Dec 1920
Occupying British Army troops burn Cork. An escalation in the tit-for-tat violence during the War of Independence.
Video Transcript
– The 11th of December, 1920. A night that goes down in infamy in Cork City’s history.
British Army troops do their best to burn down Cork City. I’m gonna tell you what happened, why it happened, and what happened afterwards, guys. Now, I’m Dara. This is Rebel City Tour, and thank you for tuning in at rebelcitytour.com. Okay, so I’m outside Penneys department store on Patrick Street, one of the main streets in Cork City. Now, early in this day, on the 11th of December, 1920. A British Army patrol is heading back to barracks. They’re up in Victoria Barracks, which is up Patrick’s Hill in this direction. Now, this Army patrol is ambushed by a group of, a battalion of the IRA essentially, a battalion of Irish rebel guys.
They sustain many casualties and one of their group, an ex-army officer in World War I is killed. So now, they say military service is 99% boredom, 1% sheer terror. We don’t know whether it was the boredom or the sheer terror that gets to the British troops this night, guys. But anyway, we can guess – because it all kicks off.
So the troops, they file out of Victoria Barracks up Patrick’s Hill. They assemble here outside Penneys, which used to be known as the Munster Arcade on Patrick Street. These troops are from the Auxiliary division. They’re met by the black-and-tans (more British soldiers) who come from Elizabeth Fort in that direction.
Now, at some point, one of these troops is holding an incendiary device, essentially a fire bomb. He throws the fire bomb into the Munster Arcade, Penneys essentially. Penneys department store behind me.
The fire bomb, boom blows up. Pretty soon the entire building is on fire. The flames start to spread. Now, as the flames start to spread and Cork starts to to burn, the troops just get more and more excited. They start causing huge trouble in Cork city. They start breaking windows, looting shops, harassing local citizens. By four o’clock in the morning, they are drunk out of their minds. They head up to Cork City Hall, up in this direction. They blow up Cork City Hall. Cork City Hall goes up in flames and takes up Carnegie Library. Which would’ve been next to it.
Now, Carnegie Library guys was Cork City’s library. It would’ve held much of Cork City’s public records. And up goes many, many public records in this fire in Cork City. Records of marriages, deaths, that kind of thing.
What happens next? Now, the firemen. The firemen are in their station. They’re watching the city burn. They know they have to come out and save the city, but they don’t want to risk the anger of the troops, the drunken troops. So, eventually the firemen say, okay, we’re gonna come out and we’re gonna save Cork. So they come out, the troops immediately turn their anger on the poor firemen. They cut their hoses with their knives. They drive their armored personnel carriers over their hoses, and they even open fire on the poor firemen.
One fireman sustains serious gunshot wounds on this night. Now, if you were here this night, guys, on the 11th of December in Cork City. You would’ve felt the heat from the flames as the flames started to spread. The air would’ve been thick with ash and soot. It would’ve been black. And you would’ve heard the pock, pock, pock of rifle fire and the smashing of broken windows all around the city.
At the end of the 48-hour rampage, and it went on for 48 hours. There were 300 residential properties, 300 homes burnt to the ground, 40 business premises burnt to the ground, and about 3 million pounds worth of damage done. So in today’s money, that’d be about 200 million dollars of damage caused in the city.
So now what happens? People start to notice, the international media, the press. They start to notice when, what was supposed to have been a British city is burnt to the ground in what was supposed to have been peace time. Because the British government didn’t recognize this as a war. So, the international press come calling. They’re from Germany, France, America etc. They come to Cork and they wanna find out what happened.
The British Army and the British government, they put out the word. That it was the Irish rebels who burned down their own city. Now, from talking to the locals, the photographers and the press and the journalists, they quickly come to the conclusion that, it wasn’t the Irish rebels who burned down the city. It was the British Army.
So there’s a military Court of Enquiry, this goes on for a while. Long story short, no-one is ever held responsible for the burning of Cork.
Remember now, this is the 11th of December, 1920. So it was a cold, cold Christmas for many Cork citizens that year. They’d lost their form of employment, they’d lost their houses, and yeah. This was a night that goes down in infamy in Cork City’s history.
